A Relevance-theoretic Perspective On Translating The Implicit Information In Literary Texts

As one means of cross-cultural communication, the literary translation differs from non-literary translation in that the translator has to deal with a large chunk of implicit information, which is inherent in the literary texts. The implicit information has its characteristics, such as graded communicability, context-dependence, the correlation among the implicit information, text and context, etc. These characteristics determine the interdependence of text, context and successful communication, and they further restrict the communicability of the literary texts in another context, so the translator of the literary texts often finds more difficulties in translating. As to translating the implicit information in literary texts, Ernst-August Gutt (1996) has had a frontier study. However, in China, few scholars have researched into the topic as yet. Encouraged by Gutt's theory and his recent findings, the thesis adopts a relevance-theoretic approach and attempts to have a cognitive study of the implicit information in literary texts, and by reasoning, deducing and case studying, it experiments on building an explanatory framework for translating the implicit information in literary texts.The thesis starts with a general review of relevance theory and E.A.Gutt, Li Yin and Zhao Yanchun's relevance-theoretic frameworks of translation, and suggests that translation would be dues-based interpretive use of language across language boundaries. This new concept brings together two distinct concepts: the idea of embedding structures and the idea of interpretive resemblance, consisting in the sharing of properties.Thereafter, guided by relevance theory, the thesis focuses on a close study of the implicit information, its origin and its nature, and concludes that the implicit information is inherent in human communication and it is a prerequisite for relevance: to be relevant at all, an utterance must convey some implicit information. In literary texts, the implicit information is processed on the basis of the inferential combination of the text with a context, and it is recovered in the search for relevance. Besides, only when the readers achieve adequate contextual effects can the implicit information be acquired. Here Gutt's notion of "contextual effects" is improved: that is, the contextual effects which the readers achieve from the literary text can be analyzed into three layers: artistic, aesthetic and informative layer. To put it ina clear way, the thesis employs Figure4.2, Figure4.3 and Figure 4.4 to illustrate how the implicit information in literary texts is conveyed and processed. It follows that the implicit information is conveyed via four heterogeneous strata of the literary text: word sounds and phonetic formations of higher order, meaning units, schematized aspects and the stratum of portrayed objects.In the light of relevance theory and Gutt's framework, the thesis builds a new explanatory framework for translating the implicit information in literary texts. Due to the linguistic and contextual differences in translation, the framework is made into two versions: a strong version and a weak version.1. A strong versionTranslation, which is governed by the principle of relevance, is clues-based interpretive use of language across language boundaries. In a literary text, the implicit information is conveyed via the four strata above. In translating, the translator, therefore, will aim to translate the source texts into the ones of consistent relevance and to make the four strata of the target text interpretively resemble those of its source text adequately. In the process, the translator will firstly take into consideration the expectations that the target audience have of the target language text and the causal interaction of text and context, and he would assure that the text can yield adequate contextual effects of the three layers (i.e. artistic, aesthetic and informative layer) of interpretive resemblance and it does not cost the reader /receptor unjustified effort.2. A weak version:Since there are always some linguistic and contextual barriers in literary translation, very often the resemblance of the four strata of the texts may bring about a loss of relevance. To a translator, the task of his priority, therefore, is to translate the texts in consistency with the principle of relevance, or to maintain the success of communication. Secondarily, he would guarantee the interpretive resemblance of the textual properties. Hence, the resemblance of some text units of the translated texts has to be modified when it hinders the consistency of relevance.Compared with Li Yin and Zhao Yanchun's frameworks, the two versions, of course, can provide a more unified account of translation, and the framework is better at guaranteeingmost of the continuum for translating the implicit information when the linguistic and contextual differences get in the way of translation.Nevertheless, in building the explanatory framework, the thesis employs some figures and tables. So the framework risks formulanzing and simplifying the complex process of translation. Besides, the exemplary texts cited in the thesis are mostly celebrated ones. It restrains the validity testing of the framework. However, the examples cited of little publicity would lead us to a weak conclusion. This is why we are in a dilemma.